Today is Sunday, August 6 and there are only 109 days until Thanksgiving, still plenty of time to decide whether to serve yams or sweet potatoes with your dinner.  Today we remember the birthdays of Francois Fenelon, Sir Alexander Fleming and Andy Warhol.  On this day in 1181 a supernova was observed by Chinese and Japanese astronomers, in 1787 the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia began debate and in 1945 the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima by “Enola Gay”.  In Bolivia and Jamaica it is Independence Day, in Malawi and Ireland it is August Holiday and in the US it is National Root Beer Float Day and National Wiggle Your Toes Day.

Well, a new month is upon us and it is time to break out the useless information folder.  August is the eighth month of the year and the fifth month to have a length of 31 days.  Certain meteor showers take place in August, including the Perseids, which typically takes place from July 17 to August 24.  August’s birthstones are peridot and sardonyx.  The birth flower is the poppy meaning beauty, strength of character, love, marriage and family.  The zodiac signs are Leo (until August 22) and Virgo (from the 23^rd on).

Among the holiday observances for the month are Children’s Eye Health and Safety Month, Happiness Happens Month, National Children’s Vision and Learning Month, National Immunization Awareness Month, National Dippin’ Dots Month, National Panini Month and Peach Month.  Make sure you take time to observe these special days.  I hope I have given you some useful tidbits for conversations.

Here is something I have noticed recently.  Keep in mind that I am retired and it is very hot out, so I spend a fair amount of time inside my house watching TV.  As I have many times in the past, I have noticed a trend lately that I wonder about.  Various products are now using talking owls to push their products.  I cannot help but wonder why.  I suppose that it comes from the idea that owls are wise, but what is that based on?  Are owls actually wise?  As it turns out, not so much.  Their nocturnal habits and swift, silent flight make them seem mysterious, and they are certainly well-adapted for hunting small creatures in low light, but when it comes to measurable intelligence, owls have very small brains proportionate to their body size, and they are less trainable than crows, hawks, parrots or pigeons.  In fact, most owls can't be trained to do simple tasks.  One study found that great grey owls repeatedly failed a simple cognitive test—pulling a string to get a treat—that had been successfully solved by several other bird species.

I wonder if the people creating these commercials ever actually looked into the “wise old owl” thing before choosing it as a spokesbird for their product.  Once they selected the owl, why did they feel it necessary to give it an accent?  We have owls here in the US.  Why couldn’t the owl just speak English?  Do they feel that the accent makes it even wiser?  Generally, I am not inclined to make my consumer decisions based on the advice of a talking bird.  Just like my not buying insurance because a lizard, with an accent, tells me I should.  Geckos are found in warm climates throughout the world, so why does the commercial one have the accent that it does?  And, by the way, Flo doesn’t have an accent, but then she isn’t a lizard or an owl.  She’s just annoying.

The other problem I have is the commercial where a garden gnome is giving me travel advice.  Have you noticed that he has an accent, too?  The lesson that I take away from all this is that if I want to sell a product, I need to have an annoying spokesthing with an accent to do it. 

 

I could develop a whole series of commercials for cloth pocketbooks and use an alligator with a bayou  accent and a steer with a Texas accent talking about the benefits of fabric purses and how they hold up better that animal hide ones.  They could walk into stores and try and talk women out of buying the fancy leather ones or they could accost people on the street asking why they felt the need to buy a leather briefcase when a canvas messenger bag would have been cooler and more stylish.

Frankly, if your product is a good one, you don’t need talking owls, lizards or garden gnomes with accents.  All you need to do is show the product and have someone explain why it is good, what makes it better than the competition and what the benefits are to owning it.  Personally, I don’t have confidence in a company that thinks I am shallow enough to buy their product simply because an owl told me to.  But that’s just me.

This week our fact tells us that in Nevada it is illegal to ride a camel on the highway.  Does that mean it is okay on local streets?  Does this include the small local highways or is it restricted to state and interstate highways?

Have a good week, go have a Panini and some Dippin’ Dots and relax.  Be sure to tell your friends about this blog and invite them to enjoy it, too.